Shrink It and Pink It

Being a child of the 80’s and 90’s, I was around when Meccano was going through a period of popularity and I vividly remember thinking how awesome it looked, and how I wished I was a boy so that I could play with it. The marketing was entirely masculine and I’m pretty sure that I was discouraged from asking Father Christmas to bring me some because it was ‘a boys toy’. Girls didn’t play with Meccano and I thought I must have been really weird for wanting to play with it, when all of my female friends wanted to play with Barbies.

Just recently, Husband and I toyed with the idea of getting a NERF Blaster for Sausage (I’m not going to get into a debate about kids playing with guns here, it’s personal choice, mmmkay?) and although we opted for something else (mostly because they’re pretty expensive and we’d already spent an arm and a leg on presents!), it never occurred to us to not buy her one because they’re marketed at boys.

Just recently, we noticed a new range of NERF products available, their ‘Rebelle’ range. Husband astutely commented that they’d probably been made off the back of The Hunger Games, as they’re kind of ‘bow and arrow’ style NERF guns, but I was actually pretty annoyed at the whole thing. NERF has obviously decided it wants to expand its appeal to girls, so this is what they’ve done:

I’m more than a little bit sick of the ‘shrink it and pink it’ attitude that toy companies and marketers apply to anything that’s aimed at girls – not only is it massively patronising, it’s perpetuating the myth that some toys are for girls and some toys are for boys. Surely a toy is a toy and if a child wants to play with it, gender is inconsequential? Also, by making the Rebelle range, are NERF saying that boys should reject anything pink? Just as there will be girly girls who love pink and overtly masculine boys who’d reject anything that isn’t boyish enough, there will be girls who don’t give a toss about pretty pink things and boys who gravitate towards them.

If Sausage happens to ask for something for Christmas, I certainly wouldn’t stop her from having it if it’s something that’s been deemed ‘boys only’ by the adverts, nor will I stop the new baby, should it be a boy, from playing of any of Sausage’s pink things. Male/female stereotypes are wildly outdated now – when my grandparents were little, it was fair to say that the majority of women stayed at home and did the cooking while the men worked, tinkered with cars, etc, so in those days toys for girls would have been dolls, ironing boards, toy food, so that little girls could emulate their Mums and boys would get cars and fire engines, to be like their Dads. These days, I know many men who consider themselves ‘foodies’ and the best mechanic I know is Husband’s Aunt.

It’s a real chicken and egg situation – Sausage loves pink thinks, but is that because she actually loves pink things, or that those are the things which are marketed directly at her? Surely, the only way we’re going to get around this gender stereotyping and division is if we start showing girls playing with Meccano (and NOT the pink sets of Meccano that they’ve made, either…) and boys pushing prams. Perhaps if kids were to see these things, there would be more acceptance of the interchangeable nature of gender and roles in the 21st century – perhaps then, girls who wanted to play with cars wouldn’t automatically be branded ‘tom boys’ and little boys who wanted to play with a dolly wouldn’t be automatically assumed to be girly, or gay, or any other ridiculous label.

The best way to make change in society is to normalise things to children – it wouldn’t occur to children to question which toys they should be playing with if they see play with all kinds of toys as normal or gender neutral. It could give children the freedom to be themselves and express themselves through play however they damn well want to, and I genuinely believe this could help them grow into well-rounded adults in the process. I’m not, for one second, saying that we should take Barbie away from girls and give them to boys, and vice versa, but I think there should be a choice, and not a choice that’s influenced or dictated by what kids are told that they’re supposed to like.

What do you think? Do your kids play with only gender-specific toys and if so, why? Do you think it’s a positive thing to market girls versions of things in pink, or should toys be accessible to all? Most of all, do you think that it’s important to define gender and set boundaries accordingly? Let me know.

I don’t and wouldn’t stop my son from playing with ‘girls’ toys or pink toys. However we recently took him to Clarks and when asked which shoes he wanted he instantly grabbed a pair of girls pink sparkly ones. We said no. Maybe we are wrong to do so but … well, I was worried how other kids would react at nursery. Perhaps that is daft.Mum of One recently posted…Halloween Monster Cards

They’ve done it with everything. Even PlayMobil and Lego which I had always thought of as as gender-neutral as you can get now both have ‘girl’ ranges that come in pink boxes. I grew up with a mum who was a childminder so we had everything in our house and all of the kids played with everything together without a second thought for gender. My son loves typical boy toys like cars and trains, but he also gravitates towards anything pink and sparkly and will always comment on how something is ‘sooo pretty and beautiful’.

Toy marketing is still a massive hurdle in gender equality for children. It seems odd that if you walk into a men’s suit store you will be faced with endless stacks of shirts in every shade of pink, purple and yellow and it is now considered very masculine for men to wear these softer colours, but people are still afraid of having anything pink near their sons as if it will impact their sexuality or feminise them. If my son turns out to be gay I’m pretty sure it will have nothing to do with the fact that I sometimes let him play with my jewellery, and I hope that he will live in a time when people no-longer see sexuality as an issue anyway. If playing with typically girly toys like dolls and pretend household items encourages him to be a little more sensitive as a man (and maybe even more considerate in taking an equal role around the house!) then surely that is a good thing! And as you say, these days women no-longer all stay at home while the men go out to work, the roles are far more equal as adults so it’s not as if we need to prep our children to be homemakers and soldiers.

I think it’s harder for boys. Girls can generally play with anything and it’s ok to be a tom-boy without much criticism. People don’t tend to bat an eyelid if a girl picks out a truck or wants to wear jeans and trainers or take up football, but if a boy asks for a baby doll for his birthday or wants to dress as a fairy for halloween or take up ballet then people will try to discourage it. It’s crazy. There are no such things as boy or girl colours, toys or activities. The really sad thing is that parents who perpetuate the idea of separate things for boys and girls in their own children are also inadvertently causing bullying in the playground when their kids start pushing the same ideas onto others.

I am a massive boycotter when it comes to this kind of thing! I just think that we have a choice whether we bring into our homes or not.

Even though I had heard that all children have a preference for pink when they’re tiny I’m still so shocked that my three-year-old does I have tried reeeeally hard to convey my hate of it!!! It’s so sad that boys eventually learn liking pink is not The done thing.
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